In semiconductor components having at least one blocking p-n junction, the latter appears on the surface of the substrate, on which and in which the semiconductor component is realized, somewhere between the live contacts. In said surfacing areas high electric field strengths, in case the p-n junction is blocking, i.e. a higher voltage is applied to the cathode than to the anode or a controllable semiconductor device is not yet connected through its gate terminal, result in undesired leaking currents flowing between the anode and the cathode, which currents are designated as positive or negative reverse bias current depending on the direction of polarization of the voltage to be blocked or reversed. For reducing that portion of the reverse bias currents, which is caused by high field strengths in the termination portion, so-called xe2x80x9cjunction terminationsxe2x80x9d are employed in the prior art, which, for example in the form of specially formed field plates, cause an optimized course of equipotential lines and thus avoid high field strengths in the termination portion of such components, cf. DE-A 195 35 332 (Siemens), column 3, line 58 to column 4, line 35; or xe2x80x9cMultistep Field Plates . . .xe2x80x9d, IEEE Transactions on electron. devices, Vol. 39, No. 6, June 1992, from page 1514 onwards; xe2x80x9cThe Contour of an Optimal Field Platexe2x80x9d, IEEE Transactions on electron. devices, Vol. 35, No. 5, May 1988, from page 684 onwards; and finally xe2x80x9cTheoretical Investigation of Planar Junction Terminationxe2x80x9d, Solid-State Electronics, Vol. 39, No. 3, pages 323 to 328, 1996. The planar junction terminations described therein are optimized with regard to their geometry, on the one hand as a field plate having steps and on the other hand as an optimized steadily curved field plate having a modified elliptical geometry. However, the prior art has not yet succeeded in economically fabricating the optimized geometric structure of a field plate in the termination portion of a semiconductor component capable of blocking, especially of such a component to which a high voltage of more than 500 V can be applied.
It is the object of the invention to fabricate the aforementioned semiconductor components, which are in particular highly blocking or capable of blocking, on an economic basis, i.e. at low costs, and nevertheless utilize their maximum blocking capacity.
This is achieved by the invention, if a termination portion of the inner anode metallic coating comprises an insulator profile, having a shape which begins flat and is curved outwards and upwards in a steadily increasing manner, which portion is the xe2x80x9ccurved portionxe2x80x9d of the insulator profile, and having a xe2x80x9cbase portionxe2x80x9d, which is located directly adjacent thereto and is virtually planar, said base portion together with the curved portion determining the cross-section of the insulator profile.
The insulator profile is designed such that, between the curved inner metallic coating, outwardly extending the anode, and the outer metallic coating, located outwards of and adjacent to the base portion of the insulator profile, which will in most cases be the cathode, peak values of an electric field generated during operation can be avoided. The insulator profile is produced by a method, in which an at first deposited insulator layer having a thickness is additionally covered with a resist layer over the entire substrate, which resist layer is illuminated through a mask in a structured manner, which mask changes in its gray-tone value in accordance with the desired course of curvature in the curved portion of the respective insulator profile. The gray-tone value in the mask is transferred into the resist layer by exposure, which layer can be structured subsequent thereto, especially by developing, in order to then transfer the structure of the developed resist layer into the insulator layer having a thickness by an etching process, such as RIE (reactive ion etching), wherein it is an advantage if the etching rate of the insulator layer and the etching rate of the resist remainders, remaining after developing the exposed resist layer, are about equal in order to prevent a not-to-shape transfer of the resist profile into the insulator.
The resulting insulator profiles can either surround the anode in the form of a wall or a plurality of insulator profiles may be provided which are arranged in an outwards staggered manner and the curved surface of which is differently shaped. If a plurality of staggered insulator profiles is provided (claim 2, claim 3), the curvature of the surfaces of the curved portions is not equal, but steadily increases with each profile being located further outwards (claim 3).
On the mentioned respective curved surfaces metallic coatings are deposited, which, for the insulator profile outwardly adjoining the inner anode, conductingly pass over into the anode metallic coating.
The structuring, which is coded in its gray-tone value, is performed, during exposure, such that a desired light-intensity profile is coded into the mask by the semitone process, i.e. via a pixel screen, and that the pixel sizes are transferred below the resolving limit of a reducing projection exposure in an almost continuous course of exposure of the resist layer, by which it is thus possible to produce continuous surfaces curving outwards and upwards; the insulator profiles formed according to the invention thus have at least one continuous surface (without steps) steadily extending across a substantial area, which surface is designed in a manner which theoretical calculations for an optimized course of flux lines, when a reverse bias voltage load or conducting-state blocking load is applied, imply to be favorable.
By use of the invention the thickness of the insulator layer can be continuously varied in a process in a predetermined and controlled manner over a wide area of up to 10 xcexcm; it is not necessarily required to give the surface curvature an ideal course as long as it is ensured that the substantial increases of field strength can be avoided and that the reverse bias voltage load at the termination of the anode towards the cathode does not include substantial peak values.
Even with semiconductor components having reverse bias voltages of more than approx. 500 V, the theoretically maximally possible reverse bias voltage can almost be achieved at minimum space requirements for the junction termination, i.e. the xe2x80x9cblocking capacityxe2x80x9d of the occupied space can be fully utilized. The minimum space requirements are important in said components, a plurality of which is produced from one wafer, and wherein utilizing the blocking capacity to a maximally possible extent becomes the more important the higher the reverse bias voltages are. Said aspects are of particularly great importance for highly blocking IGBTs.
Even with Schottky diodes, which are not based on a p-n junction, but which utilize the blocking capacity of a metal-semiconductor junction, the insulator profiles produced according to the invention may be employed in an advantageous manner. At the edge of the metal-semiconductor junction the small effective radii of curvature would result in excessive field increases. For preventing said increases, diffused guard rings are employed in the prior which, however, at strong conducting-state loads, cause an undesired injection of minority charge carriers. By use of the insulator profiles and field plates produced according to the invention such an injection of charge carriers does not occur and the diffusion process during production can be omitted.
The use of the invention, which is limited to measures performed at the surface of the semiconductors, is particularly advantageous even if the power semiconductors are to be improved on the basis of silicon carbide (SiC), as an example for a semiconductor having a high band width (claim 12). In said semiconductors a very low diffusion constant for doting substances must be put up with and this being the reason why termination portions can virtually not be produced by diffusion.
The component, with the insulator profiles produced according to the invention, comprises profiles which, at the transition to the anode, do not terminate in a continuous or steady manner, but terminate with a small step in the order of magnitude of more than 5 nm and less than 50 nm. Said step being very small compared to the thickness of the metallic coating and is virtually of no consequence, but results from the method of production by gray-tone lithography. Thus, the metallic coating may, for example, have a thickness of approx. 1 xcexcm, while the xe2x80x9cstepxe2x80x9d of the insulator at the end of the curved portion of the insulator 20 produced by gray-tone lithography is 20 nm.
Gray-tone lithography works in such a manner that the substrate is covered with an insulator layer, which is at first covered with a photosensitive layer, which is exposed in such a manner that the course of curvature of the surface of the insulator profile is exposed into the photoresist layer by gray-tone variation, i.e. by adapting the light-intensity distribution to the shape of the insulator profile, which photoresist layer is structured subsequent thereto by developing (claim 11). The photoresist layer structured in such a manner now consists of resist remainders only, forming blocks on the insulator layer, which blocks correspond to the insulator profiles. By means of an etching technique, for example a dry-etching process, the resist remainder still present on the substrate surface is conformally etched into the insulator layer, wherein the insulator layer is substantially planely removed and is more extensively removed where there are no resist remainders (claim 6).
The transfer by shape is promoted if the etching rates of the resist remainders and the insulator layer are equal; if they are not equal the shape of the resist remainder must be adapted accordingly, which may be effected by adapting the intensity distribution during exposure.
The height of the insulator profile in the base portion can be selected to be higher or lower (claim 4, claim 5). If the insulator profile has a height of more than approx. 5 xcexcm in the base portion, the slope at the end of the curved portion at the transition to the base portion is more than 10xc2x0. The curved portion ends steeper here than in the insulator profile, which is flat in the base portion (claim 5). In a higher base portion the normal extension of the base portion is substantially ten times the height of the base portion, preferably even more.
If a more flat base profile, which is easier to fabricate by gray-tone lithography, is selected (claim 5), an additional screen electrode, which is located above the anode potential of the inner metallic coating, can be formed above the junction termination. The lateral extension of the base portion is a multiple of the height of the base portion here, in particular more than 50 times to 200 times the height of the base portion, which especially has a height of 2 xcexcm. Between the end of the curved portion and the beginning of the upward curvature of the additional screen electrode (hood) there is an intermediate region, which, in its extension, is adapted substantially to the radius of curvature of the curved lateral outer end of the hood, in which intermediate region the distance between the hood, which follows a substantially horizontal path here, and the surface of the base portion is substantially constant.
The curved portion of the hood is preferably a quarter circle (claim 7). Its curvature can be considerably more pronounced than that of the surface of the curved portion within the base portion of the insulator profile.
The region between the anode metallic coating and the outer cathode metallic coating, i.e. the region of one or more staggered insulator profiles, can be covered in an elevated manner with a wall-like casting compound, in order to prevent flashover (claim 9).
If insulator profiles arranged in an outwards staggered manner are provided (claims 2, 3), below each of the staggered metallic coatings, extending beginning from the outer end of the base portion of the insulator profile located further inwards up to the upper end of the curved portion of the base profile located further outwards, a strip-shaped compensating area can be provided in the substrate, which is diffused into the substrate and which transfers the potential present at the respective location when a voltage is applied from the substrate area to the respective metallic coating (claim 10). The doting of said strip-shaped zones diffused into the substrate substantially corresponds to the doting which is selected for a p+ region below the anode metallic coating.
The penetration depth of the diffused zones below the metallic coating is preferably only low, preferably less than 10 xcexcm, which technologically does not give rise to field peaks. The p+ diffusion zones transfer their potential to the respective metallic coating curving outwards and upwards (away from the substrate).
The lateral extension of the metallic curved portions should be adjusted to the space-charge depth and at the same time correspond to twice to three times the space-charge depth.